Blood-borne pathogens are a significant healthcare problem. A delayed or improper diagnosis of bacterial infection can result in sepsis—a serious and sometimes deadly inflammatory response. Sepsis is among the ten leading causes of death in the United States. See Martin, et al., 2003, NEJM, 348:1546-1554. Exports report that sepsis causes more deaths per year than prostate cancer, breast cancer and HIV/AIDS combined and that sepsis is the most important cause of death in intensive care units.
Early detection of bacterial infections is the key to preventing the onset of sepsis. Traditional methods of detecting blood-borne infections include lab cultures that require days to complete. Other molecular methods of detecting bacteria require the bacteria to first be captured and the DNA isolated from the captured bacteria. Capturing the bacteria typically requires prior knowledge about the bacteria that is sought to be detected. That information is not always available, particularly when a patient comes to a healthcare facility having an unknown infection.